Devilish Quotes

• The ugly is very appealing to man. It's instinct. One shrinks from the ugly, yet wants to look at it. There's a devilish fascination in it. We extract pleasure from horror.

  Sonya Levien

  Men, Fascination, Looks

  53 Copy quote

• Every man has his devilish minutes.

  Johann Kaspar Lavater

  Men, Sin, Minutes

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• To sin is a human business, to justify sins is a devilish business.

  Leo Tolstoy

  Honesty, Business, Integrity

  42 Copy quote

• It is too maddening. I've got to fly off, right now, to some devilish navy yard, 3 hours in a seasick steamer, & after being heartily sick, I'll have to speak 3 times, & then be sick coming home. Still, who would not be sick for England?

  John Masefield

  Home, Sick, Navy

  "Letters of John Masefield to Florence Lamont".

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• The devil's most devilish when respectable.

  Elizabeth Barrett Browning

  Respect, Witty, Devil

  'Aurora Leigh' (1857) bk. 7, l. 105

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• I most sincerely doubt if any other race of women could have brought its fineness up through so devilish a fire.

  W. E. B. Du Bois

  Fire, Race, Black

  "Darkwater: The Givens Collection".

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• To err is human, to repent divine; to persist devilish.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Motivational, Mistake, Divine

  Benjamin Franklin (2013). “Poor Richard's Almanack”, p.88, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

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• There is a devilish mercy in the judge, if you'll implore it, that will free your life, but fetter you till death.

  William Shakespeare

  Judging, Mercy, Fetters

  William Shakespeare, George Steevens, Edmond Malone, Charles Symmons (1842). “The Dramatic Works of William Shakespeare: From the Text of the Corrected Copies of Steevens and Malone, with a Life of the Poet”, p.84

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• To feel envy is human, to savour schadenfreude is devilish

  Arthur Schopenhauer

  Envy, Feels, Savour

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• Countless candles dribbled with hot wax, and their flames, like little flags, fluttered in the unchartered currents of air. Thousands of lamps, naked, or shuttered behind coloured glass, burned with their glows of purple, amber, grass-green, blue, blood red and even grey. The walls of Gormenghast were like the walls of paradise or like the walls of an inferno. The colours were devilish or angelical according to the colour of the mind that watched them. They swam, those walls, with the hues of hell, with the tints of Zion. The breasts of the plumaged seraphim; the scales of Satan.

  Mervyn Peake

  Wall, Purple, Glasses

  Mervyn Peake (2007). “Gormenghast”, p.226, The Overlook Press

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• When truth kills truth, O devilish holy fray!

  William Shakespeare

  Holy, Fray

  William Shakespeare (1962). “A Midsummer Night's Dream (Sparklesoup Classics)”, p.35, Sparklesoup LLC

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• So what name would you rather I call you? she asked as she headed out of the parking lot. Ias or Alexion. He gave her a devilish grin that set fire to her hormones. I would rather you call me lover. He wagged his eyebrows playfully at her. Danger rolled her eyes. Like all men with a onetrack mind, he was incorrigible. Don't blame me, Alexion said in an almost offended tone. I can't help it. You should see the way you fight. It really turned me on. Could you tell me how to turn you off? -Danger and Alexion

  Sherrilyn Kenyon

  Eye, Fighting, Men

  3 Copy quote

• There was a pony named Barbapoppa that I received at the age of five, and he was very mischievous and maybe even devilish. Barbapoppa was the most fabulous first animal I was to have and challenged me much.

  Chantal Sutherland

  Animal, Age, Fabulous

  "Inside the Jockeys' Room with Gary and Chantal". America's Best Racing Interview, www.americasbestracing.net. January 24, 2014.

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• Ever since our first fathers by infection took this morbum sathanicum, this devilish disease, pride, of the devil, such tinder is our nature, that every little spark sets us on fire; our nature hath grown so light, that every little thing puffeth us up, and sets us aloft in our altitudes presently.

  Lancelot Andrewes

  Father, Pride, Fire

  Lancelot Andrewes (2008). “Ninety-Six Sermons by the Right Honourable and Reverend Father in God, Lancelot Andrewes, Sometime Lord Bishop of Winchester, Vol. V”, p.9, Wipf and Stock Publishers

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• The most devilish thing is 8 times 8 and 7 times 7 it is what nature itselfe cant endure.

  Marjorie Fleming

  Nature, Endure, Cant

  'Journal' p. 47

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• There is purpose in pain; otherwise it were devilish.

  Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton

  Pain, Purpose

  3 Copy quote

• Consider the subtleness of the sea; how its most dreaded creatures glide under water, unapparent for the most part, and treacherously hidden beneath the loveliest tints of azure. Consider also the devilish brilliance and beauty of many of its most remorseless tribes, as the dainty embellished shape of many species of sharks. Consider, once more, the universal cannibalism of the sea; all whose creatures prey upon each other, carrying on eternal war since the world began.

  Herman Melville

  War, Sharks, Sea

  Herman Melville (2015). “Annotated Moby Dick or, the Whale with English Grammar Exercises: by Herman Melville (Author), Robert Powell (Editor)”, p.438, Powell Publications, LLC

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• Laws are man-made! They can be faulty, they can be childish, they can be ridiculous, they can be silly and they can even be utterly devilish! Anything man made is open to all the possibilities except perfection!

  Mehmet Murat Ildan

  Silly, Men, Law

  3 Copy quote

• It is devilish difficult to criticise society & also create human beings.

  E. M. Forster

  Character, Society, Difficult

  3 Copy quote

• Little sins carry with them but little temptations to sin, and then a man shews most viciousness and unkindness, when he sins on a little temptation. It is devilish to sin without a temptation; it is little less than devilish to sin on a little occasion. The less the temptation is to sin, the greater is that sin.

  Thomas Brooks

  Men, Temptation, Littles

  Thomas Brooks (1810). “Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices: Being a Companion for Christians of All Denominations”, p.31

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• All things from the north are devilish.

  Philip Pullman

  All Things

  Philip Pullman (2007). “The Amber Spyglass”, Knopf Books for Young Readers

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• It is human to err, but it is devilish to remain willfully in error.

  Saint Augustine

  Errors, Humans

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• Tobacco, divine, rare, superexcellent tobacco, which goes far beyond all the panaceas, potable gold, and philosophers stones, a sovereign remedy to all diseases but as it is commonly abused by most men, which take it as tinkers do ale, 'Tis a plague, a mischief, a violent purger of goods, lands, health; hellish, devilish and damned tobacco, the ruin and overthrow of body and soul.

  Robert A. Burton

  Men, Land, Smoking

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• I am sorry to say we whites have a sad reputation among many of the Polynesians. The natives of these islands are naturally of a kindly and hospitable temper, but there has been implanted among them an almost instinctive hate of the white man. They esteem us, with rare exceptions, such as some of the missionaries, the most barbarous, treacherous, irreligious, and devilish creatures on the earth.

  Herman Melville

  Sorry, Hate, Men

  Herman Melville (1987). “Piazza Tales and Other Prose Pieces, 1839-1860: Volume Nine, Scholarly Edition”, p.415, Northwestern University Press

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• I don't recall the so-called devilish things I do. But there are considerable amounts.

  John Travolta

  Amount, Recalls

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